And Every Parrot’s Name is Polly
Six years old
Maybe, seven.
Before then, I had taken to water so well.
Since my family would travel back and forth to Florida all the time to visit my grandparents.
I spent lots of time in hotel pools.
My father successfully teaching me how to Deadman’s float without a hiccup.
However, the process of propelling oneself with just one’s arms and legs was something that
he
just could not
help me.
Instead, I would hold onto the pool’s wall moving around it at a crawl,
Loving the water,
But hating the ever present threat of chlorine clogged lobes of my lung
Fearing the inability to breathe
Maybe even worse.
The simple fear of knowing that death existed.
All these events happening right at that age when your mind realizes death has become a
possibility.
We made more trips to Florida that year I was seven then ever before,
As my grandmother went in for open-heart surgery.
She lived through it that time.
That time we visited her in the hospital and my mother and I tried to take care of my
grandfather.
I don’t remember being in any hotel pools.
During that self same summer, I only have one vivid memory of a pool.
That pool with the cabana-like bathroom where I would change into my swimming trunks
was
where my parents had signed me up to take private swimming lessons.
You’d step-out of that bathroom, and, as you made your way out to the pool deck, you’d run
into
a parrot, most likely a macaw
Just sitting in a cage, perched near the door to the pool.
The parrot seems like a dream, but it was all very real.
I know it must be real
For I remember the last day I was in class.
My mother decided to stay around the house that day instead of just dropping me off.
And it was the day I cracked.
I knew I wasn’t going to learn to swim.
Why waste the time?
So, with my green towel, emblazoned with my name on it,
The towel I take to the beach still today,
And with all of my street clothes on, I walked straight into the pool.
Not the shallow end
Not at the five foot mark
No straight into the section marked nine feet.
I could have not made it.
I could have drowned.
But I do not remember any fear around my drop into the drink
Instead, all I remember is the laughter of one parrot.